“Oh, it’s in our minds — absolutely,” Boss said. “But at the same time … it’s over, it doesn’t matter. It’s about playing good baseball, regardless of what happened a year ago.”

The Spartans also dropped three straight to the Fighting Illini in Champaign, Ill., in late March last season by a combined score of 16-5. The first loss of the weekend was a lopsided 10-3 defeat before 3-2 and 3-0 losses.

This weekend, both teams enter the series by way of a bit of a hobble.

The Illini (17-16 overall, 4-5 Big Ten) have lost three of their past five, and the Spartans (24-10, 5-4) now have lost five of their past seven after a 6-3 loss to Central Michigan on Wednesday night.

“Hopefully, it provides motivation for some guys and shows that we aren’t just going to come in and win games,” junior outfielder Brandon Eckerle said.

“We have to play good baseball. Hopefully we can learn from that and take it into the weekend and win some games.”

The Spartans, who had a nation and Big Ten best fielding percentage of .981 heading into the game against the Chippewas, made three crucial errors Wednesday, spoiling freshman Andrew Waszak’s quality first four innings.

It was the second straight midweek start Waszak took a hit from a Mid-American Conference opponent after being roughed up by Western Michigan on April 14.

“People always say it takes a loss to learn a lot,” Waszak said. “That was the definition of the Western game. These last two losses have really taught me a lot.”

Because of foreseeable weather issues this weekend, the three-game series was rescheduled as a doubleheader Friday (first game at 12:05 p.m., followed shortly thereafter by the second) and the third will played at 12:05 p.m. Saturday.

Boss hopes to have the services of senior outfielder and leading hitter Eli Boike (.407 average, six home runs, 34 RBIs), who has been sidelined with a sore in his right hip flexor.

Boss said he’s also been resting sophomore catcher Andy Johnson, who has been battling injury this week.

“Those guys are dinged up and needed the rest and both probably could have gone (Wednesday), but for them, on a cool night, to get hurt in a midweek game would really have been a mistake,” Boss said.

With three freshmen — infielders Torsten Boss and Ryan Jones and outfielder Jordan Keur — contributing regularly, Eckerle said upperclassmen will make mention of the payback to be found in this weekend’s series.

“We haven’t had a lot of success in the last couple years, so it’s good to come out and beat some of these teams and get some payback,” Eckerle said.

“The returning guys definitely remember these types of games. We talk about it in the huddle before games sometimes how we owe these guys from last year. We let the freshmen know that we’re out to get some revenge.”